Darwinian

Max Jungmann

1904

Four images of trees resembling candelabra and then a fir tree, with German text above and below.

The evolution of the Hanukkah candelabra of the Pinne (Pniewy, Poland, near Posen) goatskin dealer Cohn into the Christmas tree of Conrad the businessman on Tiergartenstrasse (Berlin W.), satirizes the connection between Jewish assimilation and economic success. Tiergarten was one of Berlin’s most elegant districts and was home to many wealthy Jews. This cartoon is from Der schlemiel: Illustriertes jüdisches Blatt für Humor und Satire.

Credits

Der Schlemiel: Illustriertes jüdisches Blatt für Humor und Satire, Jan. 1, 1904. Courtesy Leo Baeck Institute, New York.

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 7.

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Creator Bio

Max Jungmann

1875–1970

Born in Schildberg, Germany (today Ostrzeszów, Poland) to an assimilated family, Max Jungmann studied medicine in Freiburg and Berlin, and was active in a Zionist student group. In 1903, following a meeting with Theodore Herzl and the Zionist leader Sammy Gronemann, Jungmann started Der Schlemihl, an illustrated German Zionist satirical monthly (1903–1906), which also employed the leading German Zionist writers Dr. Theodor Zlocisti and Leo Winz. Jungmann was active in the nationally minded and postassimilationist wing of the German Jewish literary world, editing the short-lived Die jüdische Moderne. Jungmann was also an essayist and poet. He immigrated to Palestine in the late 1930s.

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